The present invention relates in general to battery packs for energizing electrical or electronic equipment and more particularly to an improved battery pack for such equipment which greatly reduces the probability of inadvertently short circuiting the included battery terminals and the deleterious effects resulting therefrom.
Battery packs intended for attachment to and for energizing of electrical or electronic equipment, e.g., two-way portable radio transceivers, necessarily must have battery terminals which are intended to mate with corresponding supply terminals on the equipment itself for supplying power thereto for operating such equipment. These contacts or terminals are exposed when the battery pack is separated from the equipment portion which it powers. Inadvertent short circuiting such terminals can have serious risks to the user, from burns due to the metal causing the short circuit heating up to high temperatures, to more serious injury resulting from battery packs exploding which may occur when using the nickel cadmium battery types.
There have been some attempts in the past to address this problem. One such prior solution was to provide a magnetically actuated switch arrangement wherein a normally open switch, i.e., reed switch, is included in the battery compartment and an actuating magnet positioned in the electronic apparatus such that the reed switch is actuated to render the battery terminals live when the battery pack is fully mated to its associated electrical or electronic apparatus. However, this protects the user only in those situations where the battery pack in fact includes the actuatable reed switch. It does not protect the user from accidental short circuiting the battery terminals in a battery pack without such reed switch. The battery terminals in that case are simply alive at all times.
What is needed then, is a combination electrical apparatus and battery pack arrangement which is safe to operate under any conditions, and which prevents the use of a conventional battery pack in substitution thereof without the safeguard provisions previously specified.